<< Introduction

Cozetta Gray Guinn, a native of Arkansas, is an artist, curator, and educator. She is currently an instructor of Art History and History of Africa in the Intercultural International Studies Division at De Anza College in Cupertino, California, and is also an art consultant at Nbari Art. Her artworks are generally reflections of the rural south, West Africa, and the California Desert. She paints under the name "C. Guinn" and describes her work as "stories of memories and experiences expressed impressionistically and boldly." Although oil is her preferred medium, she also uses charcoal, pencil, and pastels.

For nearly 38 years, Guinn has been involved with African art. Her Masters thesis was on the "Interrelationship of Art and Culture of the Yoruba of Southwest Nigeria." She has taught public school art, African art history, and History of Multicultural Art in the United States. She has been the curator of numerous exhibits, including several held at Foothill College, Los Altos Hills, California and at De Anza College, Cupertino, California. She has served as a docent at the Mexican Museum in San Francisco; and since 1997, as a docent in the Africa, Oceania and the Americas Galleries of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco (M.H. de Young Museum, and the Palace of The Legion of Honor). She was once a volunteer at Nigeria's National Museum in Lagos, Nigeria where she was responsible for updating the Museum's guidebook, preparing a booklet entitled "2000 Years of Nigerian Art," and for identifying and sorting slides of Nigerian art forms.

Guinn's published artwork includes: reproductions of the originals "First Born" (1980), "Flitty" (1983), "Sunday Morning at Bethel" (1984), and "Kids from Mt. Moriah" (1983) printed in 1984; giclées of "Yoruba Woman and Child," "Blue Mood," "Rural South," "Hazel," and "One on One" created in 2001, and the prints and cards in the 2006 collection (currently viewable in the online catalog).

For more in-depth information, please see Ms. Guinn's Curriculum Vitae.